Studies in Phenomenology



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THE BIBLICAL TEXT AS THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL DESCRIPTION IN THE MICHEL HENRY’S WORK “INCARNATION: A PHILOSOPHY OF FLESH”

Title in the language of publication: БИБЛЕЙСКИЙ ТЕКСТ КАК ФЕНОМЕНОЛОГИЧЕСКАЯ ДЕСКРИПЦИЯ В РАБОТЕ МИШЕЛЯ АНРИ «ВОПЛОЩЕНИЕ: ФИЛОСОФИЯ ПЛОТИ»
Author: EVGENIYA SHESTOVA
Issue: HORIZON. Studies in Phenomenology.
Vol. 14, №1 (2025), 115-133
Language: Russian
Document type: Research Article
EDN: FZVSTT PDF (Downloads: 578)

Abstract
The article examines the legitimacy and productivity of making use of the biblical text as the phenomenological description on M. Henry’s work “Incarnation: A Philosophy of Flesh.” It is shown how the tasks of phenomenological description also change in Henry’s phenomenology, in connection with henryenne transformation of the tasks of phenomenology (development of the phenomenology of the invisible, description of the affective dimension of life). Based on the problematization of phenomenological language by M. Heidegger and E. Fink, Henry conceives description rather as an indication of a peculiar pathic experience. The problematic of description shifts from the question of creating a description to the question of understanding, or fulfilling it. In the Gospel quote “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14) Henry finds a new conceptualization of corporeality as incarnation, which is initially realized in the figure of Christ, acting as sort of “transcendental subject.” The article suggests reading the comparison of our structures of incarnation and the incarnation of Christ according to the paradigm model. The paradigm means an affinity based not on the transition from the general to the particular or from the particular to the general, but on the transition from the particular to the particular. A paradigmatic example is a special object that is an object along with other objects, but determines the intelligibility of a number of objects. The difference between the hermeneutic interpretation and the phenomenological fulfilling of the biblical description is shown based on Henri’s text. In the phenomenological reading, Gospel quotations are taken without any historical and theological context, they become a source of double-natured concepts that work in both the theological and phenomenological dimensions. Their phenomenological realization occurs in the discovery of a certain experience as effects of the pathic dimension of life.

Keywords
M. Henry, phenomenological method, description, paradigm, incarnation, Christ.

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